Blog
Infrastructure, explained by the people racking it.
Practical guides on bare metal, VPS, storage and network strategy — informed by ARPHost's infrastructure series and our own Tampa FL floor.
September 30, 2026 · 8 min read
Three Open-Weight Releases Just Changed Self-Hosting. Here Is What Fits on a VPS.
September 2026 dropped three landmark open-weight releases: MiMo-V2.6, Nex-N2.5 and K2 Horizon. Here is an operator's guide to which of them actually fits on a VPS — and how to self-host in Tampa from $5.75/mo.
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September 30, 2026 · 6 min read
AI Agents Need a Home: Why Computer-Use Agents Belong on Your Own VPS
Nex-N2.5 can see a screen, move a cursor and run your workflows. Before you let an agent loose on your digital life, one question matters more than benchmarks: whose computer is it working on?
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September 30, 2026 · 7 min read
From 0.9B to 375B: Matching Open Models to Your Hardware (the K2 Horizon Lesson)
IFM shipped K2 Horizon as six models from 0.9B to 375B parameters — one for every hardware budget. Here is how to think about model-to-machine sizing, and what each tier costs on a Tampa AI VPS.
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September 25, 2026 · 6 min read
Bare Metal vs VPS: Picking the Right Box for the Job
One gives you the whole physical machine; the other gives you a slice of one for pocket change. The honest answer to "which should I buy" is almost always about the workload — here is the decision tree we actually use.
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September 24, 2026 · 5 min read
Why Tampa Is a Serious Datacenter Market
Miami gets the headlines, but Tampa is where a lot of the Southeast's network gravity actually sits. Here is what makes a Tier III facility on the I-4 corridor worth racking hardware in — from carrier density to Latin America reach.
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September 23, 2026 · 7 min read
Enterprise vs Consumer NVMe: What Actually Goes in Our Racks
NVMe now ships in over 80% of enterprise SSDs, but the label on the box hides the differences that decide whether your database loves you or pages you at 3am. Here is the spec-sheet truth — and what we deploy.
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September 25, 2026 · 5 min read
How Datacenter Bandwidth Billing Actually Works (Without the Hand-Waving)
Committed rate, 95th percentile, per-GB — every colocation quote speaks one of these dialects, and the difference can double your effective cost. Here is what the numbers mean and why our colo plans bill the way they do.
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